Despair
by knighted lioness
Summary: And when Snape gets away and Harry stands there weeping, he realizes that all along he still somehow hoped that Dumbledore would pull him through the war, that Dumbledore would save the day and that he, Harry, would get to live after all. Death-fic R/R


**AN:** Hey guys, just a short fic on Harry's death in Deathly Hallows, semi-AU because it follows physical events in the canon but has a different take on how Harry feels about those events. **Please review and tell me what you think!!**

**Despair**

Harry returns to Hogwarts for his Sixth Year not feeling any better than he did at the beginning of summer. Why should he? Sirius is still gone, dead, lost to him forever, and that's not something that's going to change just because it's time to go back to school. He knows he's wallowing, knows that there are things he has to do, responsibilities to face that he doesn't want, that he has never wanted, but that are his anyway. He can't help the resentment he feels, the desire to scream at the unfairness of it all that rises churning from his gut and wells in his throat, burning like acid every time he thinks of the fate bestowed on him, the words of Prophecy that have doomed him. And there's the guilt too, because even though he would never wish this destiny on anyone, would never want any of his friends to have to shoulder this burden, he can't help but wish thatthere was someone else, _anyone else please please please_, who was chosen for this impossible task.

At sixteen he's shorter than most boys his age and still skinny and knobby kneed and can't flirt worth a damn,_ not that he wants to anymore, when everyone around him dies and dies and dies_, but he already feels old and jaded, like he's seen and done everything—everything except the one monumental mission that he's quite sure he'll never be able to do_ never never never_. He can't bring himself to be interested in the things his peers are interested in, and when he meets Hermione and Ron on the train he is amazed at how distant he feels, how much effort it takes to stay focused on the things they talk about: schoolwork, Quidditch, the Order, the murders during the summer. Even the darker topics can't rouse him from his weariness, his fatalistic sense that it doesn't matter if he knows what the other side is doing _who cares? whocareswhocareswhocares_; it's not like he needs to know where they are so he can go find them since they always come to him and he'll just do his bit and fight them off like always. It feels like trouble is always coming to him, not the other way around as Snape so sneeringly suggests. Only once did he willingly walk into danger without having a real reason to do so, and he's lost enough because of it to have learnt his lesson. _sorry Sirius sorrysorrysorry_

So he surprises Malfoy by walking away when the other boy taunts him. The insults just roll off his shoulders—what can this little boy, this frightened, insecure little boy say to anger him that Voldemort has not said already? What can he threaten him with that Harry has not already witnessed within the depths of his hated foe's twisted mind? _blood and screaming and cold dark joy_

He walks away and keeps walking, stumbling through the year, through conversations and classes, without pausing, without even noticing the time passing. Dumbledore's eyes twinkle less often when he looks at Harry, and a frown touches his lips as the old wizard racks the depths of his wisdom to try and understand why Harry continues to mope, why he has not rebounded as he has always done before. Hermione and Ron worry too, but they have other drama going on in their lives and Harry is glad to see the gradual realization dawning in Ron, as close as he comes to happy when he sees the blushing peeks that Hermione sneaks when the orange-haired boy isn't looking. So he gets out of their way, almost eagerly, and keeps stumbling along, a blind man slipping over sand dunes that feel like mountains _always sliding down down down_. Strangely enough, now that he doesn't care about anything, his classwork improves—he's not distracted by anything else—and Dumbledore begins to smile again when he sees that Harry is getting stronger, never realizing that inside Harry is numb and tired and doesn't care _whocareswhocareswhocares _if he's improving because Voldemort's got fifty years of power and experience and knowledge on him, not to mention, if Dumbledore's memory gathering is correct, seven extra lives, and there is _no way_ that Harry is going to beat him. He's going to die and doesn't see the point in getting too attached to life if he's going to have to just give it up again the way he's had to give up everything else that's ever been good in his life. _sorry Sirius sorrysorrysorry_

So when the end of the year comes and Dumbledore lies dead at his feet it is a shock to realize that, yes, he can still feel emotion. He can still feel pain and anger and hatred and grief and yes, the acrid taste in his mouth is fear. He can still chase Snape of his own volition and fire wild, haphazard curses at the man whose actions have jolted him from his stupor, even as tears stream down his face for the first time since that night in Dumbledore's office when he learned that he was doomed. And when Snape gets away and Harry stand there weeping, he realizes that all along he still somehow hoped that Dumbledore would pull him through the war, that Dumbledore would save the day and that he, Harry, would get to live after all. And he recognizes that the numbness he has been enveloped in has been a cocoon, a now shattered shield that protected him from his desire to live, from the utter despair that now crashes down on him. _hopeless but not empty anymore…_

A week later he's standing with Ron and Hermione over Dumbledore's tomb and the other two are crying but they're also glad to see their friend back, thinking that his newfound openness is a rekindled determination to do the right thing, to take up the mantle that Dumbledore has left him. Only they don't know that it's really despair that drives him on, and he doesn't tell them because now that he's truly renounced hope for good he's at peace, he's free to care about them and to not want them to worry and to enjoy every moment he has with them. _sorrysorrysorrysorry_

And a few months later when he walks into those woods and gives up his life it is almost easy. No, it is almost _too_ easy, he should say. Because he's embraced everything he can of life and he has no hope for survival, no hope for anything but a better world on the other side where he can rest and see the parents he's been deprived of and the godfather he killed by being arrogant enough to _hope_ that he could defeat Voldemort and save Sirius. _fool…hope is for fools_

The woods are quiet to his ears, as if every sound is muted and there is nothing but peace when goes forth to meet death and _he sees darkness _but it cannot touch him, for dark is nothing without light _neither can live while the other survives _and despair cannot harm those who have no hope.


End file.
